2011 Top Advisor Rankings: Missouri

Ranked #1: Bud King ♦ A key investing tenet is diversification, but Bud King doesn't believe that requires myriad holdings. He wants a portfolio to contain a concentrated number of individual stocks and bonds. While many advisors aim for diversification through funds, which have baskets of securities, King often prefers to pick individual names, based on intensive research. "We want to be smart enough to make decisions to select the individual securities we own and then live with the results," says King, 53. His team runs money for about 300 families. In fact, he says, with the tiny 10-year return on the broad stock market, having the confidence to pick winners is key. Today his investments are guided by three major trends: aging demographics, the deleveraging of the American consumer and pressure on currencies from burgeoning government entitlements. King says this will result in slow growth and low inflation, so he believes there will be more upside in bonds, which he is emphasizing in his picks. -Michael Sisk